Snow removal as a transportation issue

When I was away this summer, the Albany Common Council passed legislation about snow removal, imposing fines if the residential or commercial property owner failed to remove snow from the sidewalk in a timely manner. I was fairly neutral on this bill; I was hoping that the city would have enforced the PREVIOUS iteration more vigorously, which involved the city removing snow from the sidewalks and billing the owners. Most of the conversation, as I recall, was whether this was some insidious money grab by the city.

John Carl D’Annibale / Times Union

What does that have to do with Getting There? Well, if you’ve ever walked across snow that has been trampled down, then frozen, in a particularly uneven way, you know that mountain goats would find the terrain tricky.

Moreover, I’ve noticed that CDTA has discontinued a number of bus stops in anticipation of the new schedule going into effect on November 13, in order to save gasoline. They haven’t actually removed them yet; they’ve merely put these bags over them like executioner’s hoods. So my nearest bus stop, instead of being 20 feet away is now 0.2 mile; no big deal when the pavement is dry. But it could make a huge difference when trying to get to the bus stop before the bus. This type of situation has historically led to more people walking in the road, a hazard for all involved.

If the city DOES enforce the law, with fees and fines, I hope they pay particular note to a couple specific issues:
*properties on corners – as I understand it, that property owner should be making a path to the street in both directions.
*width of the path on the sidewalk – I’ve been told that the path should be the width of a common wheelchair. This means that those paths a shovel’s width are totally inadequate.

While I can note specific addresses that have always done an inadequate job (one on the first block of Central Avenue, and one near St. peter’s on South Allen Street immediately come to mind), there are three particular culprits in my Pine Hills neighborhood, based on my understanding of the rules:

3. Albany Public Library – Unfortunately, MY library, which, while doing a decent job on the parking lot around the perimeter of the building, isn’t always as quick to clean the sidewalk. Occasionally, in the past couple years, they clean a path to and from the library building, which is something.

2. Citizens Bank – My bank from back when it was Albany Savings, it’s really good at creating that shovel-width walkway. When the snow froze, then partially melted last winter, a soggy quagmire of slippy slush was created. Also, the bank’s not great at clearing the corner.

1. Albany Police Department – I’m assuming that all the turf from the police section of the building on Madison and Western to the corner at Allen is its responsibility. Whoever the responsible party, it doesn’t get cleaned very quickly. About three days in, the corner gets plowed out. Can the city fine itself?

And who the heck is responsible for masking the bus kiosks accessible? An answer I got from one local official: “As for clearing a path from the bus shelter to board and get off a bus– that is a good question that has come up before and has always been answered very ‘greyly'”. That sounds about right.

As I’ve noted, the drag about the Corporate Woods (#737) bus not going to a couple buildings that it used to cover is that one is walking uphill, in the dark, with no sidewalks, and in the case of building #22, around a huge curve with a lousy sight line, on which drivers operate too fast.

Snow removal is a safety, transportation, and quality of life issue.

Roger Green

11 Responses

Roger, Roger, Roger! Sorry, I couldn’t even get through reading your blog post because I must tell you this:

THE LANGUAGE OF THE SNOW SHOVELING ORDINANCE REMAINS EXACTLY THE SAME AS IT WAS LAST YEAR AND THE YEAR BEFORE THAT AND THE YEAR BEFORE THAT…. THE ONLY CHANGE IS TO THE FINES. THE NEW INITIAL FINE IS ACTUALLY LOWER THAN THE PREVIOUSLY (albeit unenforced) FINE. THE CHANGE IS THAT THERE IS NOW AN INCREMENTAL FINING STRUCTURE SO THAT REPEAT OFFENDERS WITHIN A SPECIFIED PERIOD OF TIME WILL BE CHARGED MORE FOR EACH VIOLATION.

Ok, now that I got that out I will try to read your post.
Your friend, always!
Leah

Only the fines are different (if I recall we also changed the title of the chapter) but we didn’t change the language of the ordinance which remains as follows:

A. Within 24 hours of the cessation of a snowfall and at such other occasions requiring the same, every owner or occupant of any house or other building and the owner or proprietor, lessee or person entitled to the possession of any vacant lot, parking lot or gasoline service station and every person having the charge of any church, cemetery, jail or other public building in this City shall clear the sidewalks in front of such house or other building and in front of such lot of snow and ice and keep them conveniently free therefrom or shall, in case the snow and ice are so congealed that they cannot be removed without injury to the pavement, cause said snow and ice to be strewn with ashes, sand or the like and shall also at all times keep such sidewalk clean and free from all dirt, filth or other obstruction or encumbrances so as to allow the use of said sidewalks in an easy and commodious manner.
B.

In no event shall any owner or proprietor, lessee or person entitled to the possession of any vacant lot, parking lot, gasoline service station or public garage cast, shovel or otherwise deposit snow and/or ice in the roadway of any public street in the City of Albany or upon any public sidewalk and/or crosswalk in said City.

C.

The Commissioner of General Services shall promulgate rules to gather complaints and shall deploy the necessary personnel to investigate complaints and issue a notice to clear the sidewalk if necessary within 24 hours of such complaint. If such complaint is brought against a county, state, or federal entity, that entity shall be notified of the complaint and urged to clear the sidewalk within 24 hours.

So, it is STILL up to DGS to be sure that sidewalks are (eventually) cleared. And as for this, “As for clearing a path from the bus shelter to board and get off a bus– that is a good question that has come up before and has always been answered very ‘greyly’” — sounds rather familiar.

It still amazes me that the government is not responsible for maintaining sidewalks as they do the roads. It amazes me even more that the public are such sheep that they have not tried to change the law that they must maintain a public right-of-way, or whatever status they are considered to be. I realize that this is a common practice, but I still maintain that this should be as much a responsibility of the government as the roads are. Shovelling itself is not a problem for me, and I could use the exercise, but if one is away for a few days, they have to worry about someone clearing their sidewalk. In the bedroom communities of Delmar and Clifton Park, the towns maintain the sidewalks with a dedicated machine.

Is there a way that we can take this somewhat into our own hands? For example, is there a hotline we can call to report unshoveled stretches of sidewalk on main thoroughfares? There are quite a few known, repeat offenders on (for example) Central Ave who simply refuse to shovel (at all or more than a shovels-width). The ability to speed up the process or get some attention to problem properties would go a long way.

There was some limited black ice, albeit mostly on the sidewalks. I opted against riding the bike this morning after the first snow of the season; too many nervous drivers.
And it WAS cold; needed my knit hat, which I couldn’t find in time.